Tuesday, 28 March 2017

The Tourist Trap

Living in Cambridge, I like to go to the Elm Tree for their Belgian beers. For the UK, they have a seriously good range, albeit at Cambridgey prices. A travelling Belgian in search of British beer culture, however, might be better advised to try a pint of Banks & Taylors or Eagle IPA there, unless they were getting homesick.

I also go to the Carpenters Arms or the Haymakers for their pizza. They're both pretty good, but I wouldn't expect either to be high on the hit list of a visiting Neapoliton.

Another regular haunt is the Pint Shop, which has pretty much the only really solid lineup of new-wave keg in Cambridge. On the other hand, it's often London-craft-lite, and a Londoner planning a special trip might do better to save themself the train fare from Kings Cross and stop at the Craft Beer Co or the Euston Tap instead.

And it goes on. Curries, burgers, German beers, American beers - there are plenty of places that I go to in Cambridge that would hold very little interest for a visiting connoisseur, but which fill a niche as the best-of-breed locally, and which are great to have around when you want that sort of thing.

So when I see Brewdog in Brussels, or a trendy burger joint in Paris, or an outpost of Craftopia in Munich, I keep this in mind, and resist the temptation to sniff at it. Sure, I might pass it by myself, but I'm not the target market here.

Note: this post was inspired by a recent Zythophile post, although it's more going off on a tangent rather than having a pop at Martyn.